eyethu fishing
feature
D I V E R SIFI C A TI O N K EE P S
Eyethu NICELY AFLOAT
South Africa Magazine profiles Pioneer Fishing’s east coast operation, Eyethu.
By Ian Armitage
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Eyethu focus food & agriculture
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yethu is a trawling and fish processing business that produces a wide range of fish products for local and export markets. Based in Port Elizabeth for the past 20 years, and part of the Pioneer Fishing Group, the company is noted for its excellent pelagic catches and also for the high quality of its white fish catches, mainly hake. Its infrastructure includes a fishing fleet, processing factories and engineering services. Pioneer Fishing markets its products. “Pioneer Fishing Ltd exports products produced by the East Coast operation, Eyethu,” says general manager Tony Edmeades. Mr Edmeades joined Eyethu just a few months ago, brought in to help improve and expand its operations. “I started with Pioneer Fishing last year, mainly focusing on their squid operations,” he says, explaining that he was previously with Port Elizabeth-based Calamari Fishing (part of the Oceania Group) prior to joining Pioneer. “I have a wealth of industry experience.” Eyethu has a fleet of four vessels. Products include squid, bait, cutlets as well as frozen and fresh hake, kingklip and sole. “We own several fishing vessels and quite a significant processing facility - in fact it’s the only EU approved fish processing facility factory in Port Elizabeth. We have Zolani, a pelagic fishing vessel, which targets pilchard off Port Elizabeth and the Mossel Bay coastline. We sell that product into the bait market. That’s mostly exports. We do obviously supply the local market, but the majority of our sales are export sales.
“We then have Oupa Joewie. That catches inshore trawl fish, mainly hake and sole, along the southern coast of Africa. The fish are placed on ice and delivered freshly to the Eyethu factory. “Then we’ve got the Marretje, which is the flagship vessel. It mainly uses the bottom trawl method to catch deep-sea hake and has recently converted to the mid-water trawl fishing method in order to also catch horse mackerel, which we aim to sell into North Africa. We’re having a few teething problems at the moment but we’re experimenting with different types of trawl and we’ll get it right. “Our final vessel is Zuiderzee.” Zuiderzee is the Pioneer Fishing Group’s only long line fishing vessel.
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Edmeades says it was converted from an inshore trawler into a long line fishing vessel to catch hake that was primarily for the export market in Europe and specifically Spain. “That is our only long line vessel,” he says. A very big part of Eyethu’s market once lied in export with some 60 percent of its pilchard catch normally going overseas and about 40 percent of its hake. However, with reduced demand from overseas since the financial crisis, that proportion is changing Edmeades says. “Obviously the financial crisis in Europe has affected us. But what keeps us quite nicely afloat is our emphasis mainly on quality rather than mere volume. We concentrate mainly on fish of high quality and this is appreciated by our customers.” He says the weakness in the eurozone has forced Eyethu to change. “Obliviously the Spanish are catching their own fish and of course the weakness in the eurozone has seen prices collapse. As a matter of fact we can now get better margins by selling into the local market. That’s why we’ve adapted some of our vessels and changed the way we process some of the fish. Our motto is that ‘anything fresher is still swimming’ and that is the quality we deliver. But like I said we are seeing that local prices are actually better than those we can get in Spain at the moment.” Importantly, it isn’t just about good prices - Africa is more than willing to fill the void, Edmeades says. “We’ve been developing our local market and when the Spanish market comes back we’ll have to reassess things but I’m not expecting that in the near future. What we are doing is looking to supply more fish into Africa, targeting coastal communities where there is strong demand for fish. I think there has been a real awakening in Africa and also in South Africa, where people are eating more fish. In the past we were focused heavily 4
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on Europe and maybe the 2008 crisis has forced us to open our eyes and rethink our approach.” Eyethu has been working to get options, diversify its offering and strengthen its operations. In a way the loss of business in Europe has been a blessing. “Anything that forces you to look at your market and expand your market is a good thing – that is what the euro crisis has been. It has forced us to restructure and make a go of it in Africa and South Africa. When the Spanish market comes back we’ll be in a fantastic position. We won’t be reliant on one market. If a certain country or client can’t take the fish one week it wont matter as we’ll have others lined up to buy it.” All of Eyethu’s ships are equipped with all the latest equipment including radar and even net monitors that enable them to tell what type of fish are in their nets at any given time. Its operations are EU and NRCS, and also PPECB approved.
Eyethu focus food & agriculture
It is this flexibility that Edmeades sees as vital to the firm’s future success. He says Eyethu has a bright future. “A lot of fishing has a seasonality aspect to it but we are flexible in our operations and take in contract fish when we fill our quotas to keep the processing plant full. Of course we obviously do all the processing for squid on behalf of Pioneer Fishing East Coast and they’ve grown their squid supply base and we’re processing that. But all the fishing has a seasonality factor
and you have to remember you are employing people permanently and you need to diversify to ensure a consistent workflow. You want consistent volumes going through the factory. “ In the fishing industry though there is a saying that 40 percent is nature and God’s will. And no matter how well you plan, nature can spring a surprise. “You are at the mercy of nature so to fish successfully and show a profit takes the right equipment and many years of experience.” Eyethu Fishing has a policy of creating
employment for as many people as it can. It is labour intensive, using workers rather than processing machinery, and the company believes in multi-skilling. Eyethu is also active in the field of social responsibility and is focused on sustainability. “South African consumers should check out our fresh fish shop selling direct to the public - if the fish were any fresher it would still be swimming!” To learn more visit www.pioneerfishing.co.za.
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